Ask Socially Responsible Investors to Say NO To For-Profit Health Insurance

We need your help for a collective action.

TIAA-CREF, the nation’s largest retirement fund, covering academic (including medical) and religious organizations, has an option for those who want to invest their money in “socially responsible” companies. It’s called CREF-Social Choice.

While CREF-Social Choice does not invest in the tobacco, gambling, or liquor industries, the fund has chosen to invest in for-profit health insurance companies such as Aetna, Wellpoint, Coventry, Cigna, and Humana.

For-profit health insurers profit from denying care to patients, causing premature death and financial ruin to countless Americans. They also profit from rising health care costs, which are undermining every other industry and our prospects for economic recovery.

Investing in such corporations is not “socially responsible,” and we are demanding that TIAA-CREF no longer include health insurance companies in the CREF-Social Choice portfolio.

If you are a TIAA-CREF shareholder you can help by writing a letter to TIAA-CREF’s Corporate Secretary supporting the shareholder resolution to divest from for-profit health insurers. A sample letter, along with the address to send the letter to, can be downloaded here. The text of the shareholder resolution is available here.

If you are a concerned resident or patient who has dealt with our broken health insurance system you can help by signing this online petition to TIAA-CREF.

You can read a summary by Sandra Fox of the divestment campaign’s efforts to date on HCN’s website, and if you would like to get more involved in the campaign, please email us at divestment@healthcare-now.org!